Matt White Steps Down

Last night Matt White sent out a press statement confessing his involvement in doping during his time with USPS and will immediately be stepping down from his roles at Orica GreenEDGE and Cycling Australia. The deck of cards continues to crumble as Matt White is the second Australian associated to the Lance Armstrong Affair.

Matt White was referred to as ”Rider-9” in Floyd Landis’ affidavit where he says: ”I then spent substantial time training with fellow USPS team members ”Rider-9” and Michael Barry and shared, and discussed the use of HGH, testosterone and erythropoietin with them while training.”

Earlier yesterday, GreenEDGE had continued to support White. Shayne Bannan told cyclingnews, “We fully support Matthew White and trust his integrity as a sports director with us. We have become aware of the fact the he has been linked to some of the evidence in the report about the US Postal Team and we are in contact with Matt to seek full clarity as to what this is about. We will comment once we have been able to talk to both Matt White and the relevant Australian authorities.” However, this morning GreenEDGE issued a statement saying, ”We support Matt White’s decision to step down from his position with the team during the process of evaluating his involvement in the revelations put forward by the recently released USADA report.

Call it what you will, but this is the second time that Matt White has been relieved from his duties at a WorldTour team in less than a year. White’s sentiments are nice to say in a press release (see below), but his actions speak louder than words. Let’s not forget his termination by Jonathan Vaughters at Garmin-Cervelo in January, 2011 for sending Trent Lowe to see Dr. Luis García del Moral. It’s only now where the public is seeing the extent of Dr. del Moral’s involvement with doping these young riders during their time at USPS. Nobody will ever know for certain, but I don’t think it’s a far stretch to know where things were headed by Matt White sending Trent Lowe to visit to Dr. del Moral 70 kilometers away in Valencia. Lowe still maintains that he had no idea who Dr del Moral was and that all he knows is that he was going to see a specialist about his chronic fatigue and have some health checks. Even if there is more to the story than Trent is telling us, he was a young rider who was referred to USPS’s doping specialist by his Sports Director (Matt White) during a time where White was supposed to be part of a team representing a new era of clean cycling. Whether it was horrible judgement or something more, Vaughters saw grounds to fire him over it.

White stepping down from Cycling Australia and Orica-GreenEDGE is a small step towards breaking the vicious cycle. However, there is still the elephant in the room at Orica-GreenEDGE who again has come out of this one squeeky clean. For the sake of GreenEDGE’s credibility and commitment to clean cycling, I hope the housekeeping won’t end here.

Matt White’s Statement Regarding USADA Report

“

I am aware my name has been mentioned during talks that USADA has had with former team mates of mine in their investigation regarding doping activities at the US Postal Service team. I am sad to say that I was part of a team where doping formed part of the team’s strategy, and I too was involved in that strategy. My involvement is something I am not proud of and I sincerely apologise to my fans, media, family and friends who trusted me and also to other athletes in my era that consciously chose not to dope.

I stopped my racing career because I had the opportunity to be part of something that had the potential to actually change cycling. The ideas about a clean team that Dave Millar and Jonathan Vaughters spoke to me about back then, were ones that the sport desperately needed. History has shown that these ideas when fully implemented had a lasting affect on our sport. With key elements like ” blood profiling” which then was later taken on board as the “Athlete Biological Passport” and the “No-Needles-Policy” which was also adopted by the UCI and WADA, a radical change for the better started to dominate the minds of a lot of athletes. These are legacies that were pioneered at Slipstream and they have had a real and lasting impact on cycling.

In my roles with Slipstream Sports, Cycling Australia and now at ORICA-GreenEDGE, I have always acted within the ethos of clean sport and I am very proud to have worked with the new generation of clean superstars.

A lot has changed for the better, cycling is totally different now, and I have seen these changes as an athlete and also in management with my own eyes in the last decade.

As a sport, cycling has received a lot of criticism regarding doping and rightfully so – but certain teams have also lead the way in fighting an otherwise never ending battle to ensure that professional cycling can stay clean. This battle starts from within and we have had great success in changing this in the current culture in our sport. I am convinced that this battle will need constant monitoring and we must learn constructively from the past. The approach that many riders of my generation had cannot be repeated, and I believe that cycling now has the most rigorous and complete testing regimes of any sport.

I am sorry for the people I have let down because of the personal choice I made at that time, but I have endeavoured to educate and guide the current stars and to ensure that future generations never have to deal with the pressures that existed in the past. But I am very confident that our sport is going the right direction and I believe cycling has a bright future.

Given my admissions above, I have been in contact with my employees and will be voluntarily standing down from my positions with the National Men’s High Performance Program with Cycling Australia and as a Sports Director with GreenEDGE Cycling while inquiries into my case are conducted and the Board of Cycling Australia and GreenEDGE make a determination regarding my future with each organisation. I will be refraining from making any further comments until this process has run its due course.

Great little piece WW. One the things I love about your posts are that you take a position and state your opinion. Keep up the great work!

CB

You hire people with dubious pasts and this is what you get. No excuse for Orica-GE in this, they absolutely should have known better. In a way this is good for Cycling, you won’t see someone with even the most tenuous of links to doping practices holding a position of influence in Australian Cycling for a very long time. Agree also the housekeeping should not end here, Mr Stephens…a word please?

Jon

Neil Stephens & the entire Cycling Australia hierarchy should be sacked. If we all know & have known for years they are drug cheats, CA must have known & not cared – it’s disgraceful and about time something was done about it.

Jeffo

I doubt there would be too many DS’ on other teams that could say they are squeaky clean, or any for that matter. Most current Pro Tour DS’ rode during that area and odds are participating in the prevalent culture. From my point of view I would be happy to see a Truth and Reconciliation process, get it all out and then move on. I don’t have a problem with them admitting their past, I would be more concerned if they maintianed their innocence. It would be unfair for Matt to the only DS who is impacted by this affair while just about every other one stay quiet and nothing happens

Craig

Yes I’m all for truth and reconciliation… then they should all walk away from the sport!
The sport will survive..
What about all those sporting lives and others that have lost out in all this by not giving in to doping/having to race against dopers or simply being honest. Tey deserve more.

Craig

Whitey shouild quite frankly be ashamed of himself. His actions by sending Trent Lowe to Del Morel are inexcusable given what we now know and may be the reason for a very promising career ending early.
Those running CA are a disgrace and a shake up there is also surely needed. How they could have appointed Whitey in the first place allways astounded me.
OGE also need to sack Stephens and Davis..

Deb

Wasn’t Davis cleared (December 14th, 2006)? Are we going to throw the baby out with the bathwater?

Craig

Basso, Ullrich and Contador were also cleared….. now there’s three pilars of the cycling community.

Deb

But unless there is proof, then let’s not tar and feather him just yet.

Craig

Davis and Stephens aren’t the only two left at OGE that smell bad either.
I think/hope with whats transpiring now that there will be alot of questions asked/revisited of alot of riders/people within the cycling community when in the past this hasn’t been possible.

Deb

Asking questions is fine, but for me, the fact that Davis was exonerated should mean just that, unless someone is presenting new and convincing evidence, not more speculation. It goes back to the ‘mud sticks’ thing, which I loathe.
As for Stephens, I think he’s done his time in the wilderness. (My mind is of course flicking through who else from OGE may yet be implicated as per your post.) Don’t tell me though.

None

What time did Stephens do in the wilderness?

He still maintains he thought he was being injected vitamins when he was at Festina. That either makes him dumb or untruthful – either way it isn’t a good thing.

Deb

Fair point. I think I was alluding to the metaphorical wilderness that exists when after 14 years he’s still meant to be being punished.

Matthew DeMaere

Hasn’t Ulrich pretty much admitted use in his own postings on the Net?

bracks_ashat

Another one bites the dust.

Anonymous

Matt White seems like a great guy and I like him, but his professional judgement is not the best given his decision in the past as a rider and as a DS. If we keep people like this at the helm of our ship we will continue to not like the direction it travels in.

It’s an odd situation.
I think there is more to the discussion around Matt White – lets remember he was sought out for the job of DS at Slipstream when they were building the team, and especially so by David Millar who was on the start of his avid anti-doping crusade (as well as Vaughters).

Slipstream were built around an anti doping platform and White would have been integral to that. There is a lot of grey in all of this and the answers are going to be a long time coming.

It’s also worth reminding ourselves that sometimes where there appears to be a conspiracy is often human error and stupidity.

M Harvery

Let’s be honest here. Pro Cycling is stuffed and it will take a long, long, time to right all these wrongs. Seriously, Matt White gets [deservedly might I add] the chop [on a side note, since he “coached” his wife Jane Saville, what do we make of her results?], who steps up to fill the void? Neil Stephens. That’s nearly as laughable as Kim Andersen agreeing Bruyneel needed to go. Of course, Andersen should keep his job though; 7 failed doping tests mean nothing. A joke. This beautiful sport is stuffed. I’m off for a ride.

justanotheropinon

Agree with you re Jane Saville what does this do to her records? What action will AA take on this?

Wade, Elephant in the room is an under statement. We just need Alan Jones to get on board to add the cherry to the top.

Will CA come out of this looking better than an AFL drug policy? Will they just play emu and continue to trust a riders word.

Matt is remorseful like every rider is after they are caught out.

CyclingNews – Betsy Andreu article is a good one as well if you haven’t read it yet.

The 2010 investigation (which was instigated as a result of Floyd Landis’s claims) was never heard from again. To be fair, ASADA can’t and probably shouldn’t give a running commentary on its investigations.

If White denied the allegations at the time, it would have been very difficult for ASADA to proceed further. Unlike USADA, who had a collection of American athletes over whom they had leverage, ASADA only had White. Floyd Landis’s statements (I don’t even know whether they were sworn at the time) aren’t enough on their own to make a case.

Until the Armstrong case, therefore, ASADA may have been in the position where they had their suspicions but didn’t have enough to make a case.

Abdu

I don’t think this example will help – if you confess then you lose your job, etc.

Doesn’t seem to be the way forward, given that the last 20 years+ has been like this.

I’m not suggesting keep the Omertà going, just find another way of confessing and cleaning up the sport without killing it or sending it all underground…

The Wizard

Wade, I say bring it on. Lets support the efforts to rid the sport of drugs, especially the institutionalised and complicit involvement of so many within the governance of the sport. Lets seriously look at the oversight of testing. Lets rethink the funding model that places winning at all cost at the heart of the incentives that drives riders to dope. Lets pursue Lance because he was central to the doping era, and ruined careers of those who attempted to blow the whistle. Lets not allow his association with Livestrong provide him with immunity. As a cancer patient myself I have attempted to understand the Livestrong campaign and to see how money is spent. As far as I could tell it was a self-perpetuating public relations machine, with only a fraction of money going to areas such as research. So give me a break. Lance is, and was a fraud. Why should we expect much better from Livestrong?
We can already see how Lance has attempted to utilise Livestrong as an antidote to deserved outrage and even more deserved legal action for perjury and worse.

Ghost

Lets be honest as if anyone is surprised about Matty White doping. If you are then your an idiot

I was very excited when team Orica-GreenEdge was announced because I thought it will be a modern team who will strictly adhere to no-needle policy. To say that I was upset to see Matt White as a DS would be an understatement. After his “goofup” at Slipstream, he should have never got the job. I’m glad that he has now stepped down and I hope he doesn’t come back. Will Sheriff be the next one to go, I hope so.

Deb

Neil Stephens admitted to using EPO in 1998. It’s fourteen years ago for goodness sake. Vaughters, Riis and others too many to mention have also ‘fessed up. Stephens should stay. It’s old, old news and personally, I believe in second chances. White has certainly stuck with omerta until he was outed, so perhaps he should be banned, but if we deny people second chances (some may argue White has already had that), then we are not only being unrealistic, we are assuming that people can’t change.

I think the references to Stephens may refer to the teams he’s worked on ever since Festina. Liberty Seguros (operation puerto) Caisse d’Epargne (Valverde). He seems to have a jinx following him.

Peter_Cutter

Stephens has never admitted to using EPO. He still claims he only, to his knowledge, was injected with vitamins, this is why people think he still needs to answer some questions

Deb

Please read Rupert Guinness’s book, “What a Ride: An Aussie pursuit of the Tour de France”, page 206 where Guinness writes, “Stephens….put pen to paper and confessed that Ryckaerts had administered EPO to him.”

Wannabefast

Everyone should be allowed a second chance. Whitey has been a great DS by all accounts. If he comes completely clean, Id love to see him continue his career with OGE and CA.

Michal

+1

Pete Knight

I agree that everyone deserves another chance – just in another field. And how about USADA et al catch some current riders and not retirees.

Pete Knight

I agree that everyone deserves another chance – just in another field. And how about USADA et al catch some current riders and not retirees.

Pete Knight

I agree that everyone deserves another chance – just in another field. And how about USADA et al catch some current riders and not retirees.

Have to agree with this too. Also, it makes for a tricky situation when we are told their testing is to be taken as gospel, yet some of these riders, literally, never returned a positive drug test. What’s next? “Rider-A has been banned on rumour.”

Pete Knight

I agree that everyone deserves another chance – just in another field. And how about USADA et al catch some current riders and not retirees.

Ed

frequent readers of this blog will know that i have been asking this question about matt white & his history for the last couple of months. who’s next? so where is trent lowe these days? i remember when JV sacked white and everyone was going on about how unfair it was and it was pay back for his involvement in the greenedge & his luring away of riders to greenedge – the truth will always come out.

2. white was sacked by Slipstream in Jan 2011 for referring Trent Lowe to Dr Del Moral. this was, at a minimum, very poor judgment. but was it evidence of being sympathetic to doping? Lowe reportedly dropped the Del Moral bombshell while attempting to argue his case with Slipstream mgt. why would Lowe do that if he knew Del Moral’s background? he claims he didn’t. White certainly did, but what did he have to gain?

i have only the same info most of us have – just what’s reported in the news – but white to me comes across as a bit naive and perhaps lacking judgment. he doesn’t seem to have the hallmarks of Lance Armstrong as an evil doping conspirator. but i guess a DS shouldn’t be any of those things.

Anonymous

Slipstream had an approved doctors list, and any recommendation by White to go see a doctor outside of that approved list was a huge red flag, especially when it was a USPS doping doctor.

CT you originally wrote “The deck of cards continues to crumble as Matt White is the second Australian associated to the Lance Armstrong Affair.” Who is the other you refer to – Rogers? I’m curious as to why this paragraph has disappeared.

Ah ok thanks (I saw it on the RSS feed). So who is the other Australian – Rogers?

M Harvey

White had he second chance and stuffed it up. He got it in the form of JV picking up Whitey and making him a DS. JV knew the score; he knew that White doped at Postal. White blew his second chance when he got Lowe to see Moral. That all said, this whole week has made me so sick and tired of professional racing. [For the record, I have been convinced for years that LA doped. Nothing in the USADA report really shocked me].
However, when I think of Levi, George, Michael Barry, Dave Z et al remaining silent for so long, would this had even have come up if loopy Landis didn’t go looking for a job from from Lance? I seriously doubt it. Does anyone mentioned in the USADA report REALLY care about the sport?

It’s a sad state of affairs that the true champions in all of this in an Irish masseuse and the wife of a cyclist who rode for Postal. You can also throw Kimmage and Walsh in the mix. Everyone else? Riders, [Bassons and a few others aside], media; everyone was happy to soak up the spoils of Lance’s success. Pathetic.

Why didn’t JV come out 5 years ago and spill the beans? Look I don’t trust any of them; especially JV.

Let me get this straight; JV comes clean at around the same time he wants a breakaway cycling league. Is it a coincidence? I doubt it. Of course, the UCI’s position in all of this is seriously compromised. And of course, JV would profit greatly from his proposed breakaway league.

And now we have mainstream media in Australia saying that Evans in the “new Raylene Boyle” cheated out of multiple victories because of dopers.

Remind me, is Tony Rominger Evans manager still? And just how many times did Evans see Dr Evil?

Sorry for rambling. 100 km ride today – got sunburnt and now had a white wine all too quick.

you make a very good point but one that is not often liked very much. I too think that JV is an opportunist, a businessman. He used his cycling contacts to create his team and get it on the map. And once he was well set, he confessed about his past. Although, people may point out that he’s never denied doping on Twitter and has dropped hints. JV is not a clean racing messiah, he’s just another guy wanting to make money from cycling. He, supposedly, would have made more money from his real estate business (as he claims) but from cycling, he gets money, fame and respect.

There are only two things going for JV: 1. He created a team to give young riders hope and past sinners a second chance. 2. He helped Betsy and Frankie when the going was tough.

If it was up to me, I would make Cav in charge of pro racing. We need more F-words and headbutts…

jules

i respect JV. he made some very frank posts on the CN forum a month or two ago (probably the only ones ever worth reading in that place). i dare say he’s not proud of his past and has taken steps to make amends. he doesn’t need to bleat about it or “come clean” – this isn’t a hollywood action film which concludes with the villain explaining how he almost got away with it – actions speak louder than words.

Hubbard

> is Tony Rominger Evans manager
C’mon….that was a relationship that has nothing to do with training or performance. Rominger worked for IMG….

Anonymous

Timing is everything Landis and Hamilton made it possible for people like JV to come out. If he came out 5 years he would have been attacked by Lance’s legal minions and Slipstream would no longer exist.

Don’t be so naive Alex, JV didn’t come out because of guilt, he came out because he wanted to beat the USADA release.

It was leaked during the TdF in July that certain riders and managers had testified and would be serving a ban starting from September.
So JVs ‘coming out’ was more of a pre-emptive PR exercise than a clearing of his conscience.
He knew full well that come September his name would be released by USADA so beating the news makes him look like a saint. Lets not forget that Vaughters and Whitey rode on the same team at the same time, they both had Dr Del Moral as the USPS team doctor. So I think JV would have known full well WHO Dr Del Moral was, and WHY Matt White would have sent him there. So by sacking Matt White at the insistence of Paul Kimmage, JV was ducking the silver bullet.

Anonymous

Where did I say he came out of guilt? I’m just stating that from a timing perspective, there is absolutely no way he could of came out 5 years ago and stayed in the sport, so criticizing him for not coming out earlier is flat out dumb.

dave

White refused to come out and admit his involvement when JV and others did-why didn’t he come out then if he was so concerned about clean cycling? Even after the Armstrong evidence was released and he was clearly implicated, he still refused to admit anything. It was only after he was pressured did he finally admit it. Good riddance to him. If Australian cycling wants to be taken seriously there should be no way back for a couple of years at a minimum.

As for Rogers, he has a lot of explaining to do.

M Harvey

Mick Rogers … do not even get me started.

I remember Mick saying to 60 minutes just after Opercaion Puerto blew up that he would sue anyone who suggested he doped. C’mon 2006 TdF; Kessler winning stage day after being in a breakaway all day; Rogers sprinting for 3rd place [with a flat tyre]. Seriously; I’m not an idiot Rogers.

I wish Stinkewitz would spill the beans. That entire T-Mobile team was doped to the max. Most amazing thing is T-Mobile had lost Jan and Sevilla get busted before the race even starts.

You’d think that would scare T-Mobile into playing it safe. Not a chance. Stinkewitz suggests the remaining 8 went off for some fresh blood after stage 1.

It beggars believe.

M Harvey

Remaining 7 not 8 Sorry! But here they are. Anyone see any pattern in these names?

Spot the rider that hasn’t since produced a positive drugs test, been embroiled with their governing body in doping etc etc etc

Deb

They all look good in black?

Peter_Cutter

JV and the others didn’t come out and admit involvement. They were supoenaed by FDA agent Jeff Novitzky. Had they not had to go on oath, they would be in the same position White was last week

Peter_Cutter

JV and the others didn’t come out and admit involvement. They were supoenaed by FDA agent Jeff Novitzky. Had they not had to go on oath, they would be in the same position White was last week

Peter_Cutter

Whilst the Dr Moral reference is concerning, for me more concerning than the fact that White doped in the early 2000’s, I fail to see why OGE should be held to a higher standard than anyone else in the peloton. Andersen, Azevedo, Ekimov, etc. etc. are all linked to doping pasts yet will still be DS’s next season for their respective teams. And Garmin, the bastion of clean cylcing has a admitted doper as its head and every one of their senior team members had served a doping suspension. We should ban Whitey because he was named? What about all those who remain silent. There are many Australians who’ve ridden with teams during this period where organised doping has been rife…Festina, UPS, Liberty Segurus, Rabobank, T-Mobile, Mapei…. So Matt White’s the only Australian who doped in this period. Please.

Kim Andersen picking up where Bruyneel left off, Ekimov the new manager of Katusha, Vinokourov the new manager of Astana…cycling is no better off than it was last week or 10 years ago.

Anonymous

The thing that pisses me off is that CA and OGE are acting surprised, as if they didn’t know. That’s just bullshit and shows they’re still not being transparent. Pretty much anyone with more than a cursory knowledge of cycling knows that both Stephens and White doped, so I fail to see how OGE and CA could be surprised.

If Bannan et al had come out and said “Yes, we were aware of Matt’s past, but times have changed in cycling since Matt’s riding days and we made it quite clear to him before he started that we were a clean team and he has embraced that approach with us” etc. etc. then I’d be OK with him continuing in the role.

Do they think we’re idiots?

Anonymous

The thing that pisses me off is that CA and OGE are acting surprised, as if they didn’t know. That’s just bullshit and shows they’re still not being transparent. Pretty much anyone with more than a cursory knowledge of cycling knows that both Stephens and White doped, so I fail to see how OGE and CA could be surprised.

If Bannan et al had come out and said “Yes, we were aware of Matt’s past, but times have changed in cycling since Matt’s riding days and we made it quite clear to him before he started that we were a clean team and he has embraced that approach with us” etc. etc. then I’d be OK with him continuing in the role.

Do they think we’re idiots?

Alan

If you’re interested in a look at the efforts of Australian anti-doping authorities and how they compare to other countries, I highly recommend checking out “Positive” by Australian discus thrower Werner Reiterer. In it he accuses Athletics Australia of encouraging him to dope, and working with ASADA to prevent him testing positive throughout the late 90’s. Although he never failed a test, guilt got the better of Reiterer and he walked away from the sport and published the book just months before the Sydney Olympics, where he was highly favoured for a medal.

The interesting thing is how he describes the two sides of doping – the athletes (clean or not) that all knew about it and openly discussed it with each other, and the “naive” public who couldn’t handle the truth that athletics (or any other sport) could be so influenced by who had the best pharmaceuticals available (apparently what was available in Australia was very crude compared to Europe and the States).

If you’re interested in a look at the efforts of Australian anti-doping authorities and how they compare to other countries, I highly recommend checking out “Positive” by Australian discus thrower Werner Reiterer. In it he accuses Athletics Australia of encouraging him to dope, and working with ASADA to prevent him testing positive throughout the late 90’s. Although he never failed a test, guilt got the better of Reiterer and he walked away from the sport and published the book just months before the Sydney Olympics, where he was highly favoured for a medal.

The interesting thing is how he describes the two sides of doping – the athletes (clean or not) that all knew about it and openly discussed it with each other, and the “naive” public who couldn’t handle the truth that athletics (or any other sport) could be so influenced by who had the best pharmaceuticals available (apparently what was available in Australia was very crude compared to Europe and the States).

agree its a good read not just for the drugs and officialdom side of it, but his story itself. Though I would add it does read like a story for most parts.

Retired Pro

Neil Stephens should also have some explaining to do as well. For some strange reason the Australian authorities never pursued him when he was the only Festina rider to not admit to systematic doping and retired following the 1998 TdF Festina scandal. He must have been the single beacon of purity in the team – contrary to the nickname “Horsehead”, which was attributed to his large forehead (does HGH cause bone growth…)

Hopefully the Lance saga may clean things up for cycling as the past era is just sad – you even had people loading up to race local club, Victorian state and national level races here, including some of the people featured on CTs.

There a lot more to run on all of this and it will be interesting to how many other Australia pro are outed – Whitey if by far not the only one.

I wonder why Rogers really missed the worlds… ?

Roger Rabbit

Looks like Mark French may have been the only rider caught when there may have been a lot going on in the early 2000’s. He named names in a sworn statement and not much happened. Maybe our sporting governing bodies need some teeth or are they going to looked surprised everytime a rider now comes clean

Craig

Victorian trackie Robert Wilson was done for EPO in about 2003.
No I’d suggest our sporting bodies need a bloody good clean out.
Rumors of cheating in the bunches here in Melbourne were rife in the early 2000’s. Not so much now but lots of those smelly individuals are still kicking around in various posititions(some influential) within cycling.

justanotheropinon

Pretend to look surprised I think you mean.

old guy

I have to say as a lifetime club racer for 30years I am dismayed at the state of pro cycling and have been for many years getting my fingers burnt years ago after following the likes of Rominger & co only to find out things weren’t as they seemed. I think prior to that i was just to young to realise what was going on. I have to say though, as I have juniors that have worked there way up from our club now in the Pro ranks and the NRS I hope they are not pressured or intimidated into doping, I’m sure the offers will come but all we can hope is they make the right decision.
All we can hope for is some sanity and a groundswell of our opinions that we want changes made to at least help the sport we love so much, but in the end I still love riding my bike and thats what it’s all about, my old coach used to say “remember we can only control what we do not what others do”.

From all this I’m more interested in how the motivation to dope is removed.

Fear, via suspension and banning doesn’t seem to work, and if people are hoping for a new, clean era, what’s gonna be different to shift attitudes. Its a risk and reward scenario, and the rewards seemingly outweigh the risks in dopers’ minds.

So how does it happen when the temptation is so great?

Like Ben Johnson said “As if anyone is going to to pay $40, 000 for a super-box in the grandstand to watch us run 10.5”

Reckon were all part of it in some way.

jules

hi Scott. i work in compliance and the answers to stopping doping are no secret. there is established knowledge on this topic and its hardly unique to cycling. there is a lot to it, but put simply the answer is to go after the bosses, not the staff (riders). but knowing how to stop it and stopping it are 2 different things – you need motivation. the UCI is not motivated. google martin hardie who has written a couple of really good pieces on this.

Craig

Gotta say I’m very surprised(or maybe not) how quiet the Pro peloton are being at the moment.

Deb

You don’t think the baying for blood is making them a little nervous?

Sean Doyle

I’m not surprised but I am disappointed. So far other than the ones who really didn’t have a choice but to put there hand up I haven’t seen any thing different from what’s been going on for years. You have to an absolute fucking moron or you are lying through your teeth if as a rider in the pro peloton you reckon you haven’t seen anything. We also have to remember it’s not just the riders either. So so many people involved in this.

BB

Yeah I agree. Really really disappointing. Acting like its not happening. In my mind it just shows there are still a lot of guilty riders there whether actually riders who doped or ones who knew exactly what was going on but kept the wall of silence. Guys like Jens V tweeting about rubbish things and ignoring the massive elephant in the room. I’m just really disappointed with them (peloton) most of all.

pinarello413

Matty very very dissapointing :( You were a hero to me and why I started really. Im never gonna stop cycling tho….
I like how the warny post get 4 comments & anything doping is 65+

We all love a scandal

tim

so much hate, how about the redemption story….

ChrisO

I don’t buy all this truth and reconciliation give-them-a-second chance stuff.

In what other line of work would we be saying that. Accountancy, police, medicine, engineering… and we’re not talking about making an error here by forgetting to file something, or losing a document, or making a miscalculation. We’re talking about deliberate, pre-meditated, ongoing and often concerted cheating followed by an extended period of cover-up. That doesn’t deserve a second chance.

You fuck one pig…

Andrew

For Pete’s sake it is a sad day when you have to have a ” No Needles Policy” . Is it followed up by a No Pills policy, a no Tiger Balm sniffing policy and a No That Policy. These guys are big boys and should know right from wrong without having to read a corporate media release to make themselves feel good. Sure everyone in the peleton was doing it , I imagine they were all using the same excuse…. well Rider / Team X are, then we cannot be competitive unless we do it, so lets juice up. Then they all take the holier than thou stance of I always rode clean.

I cannot afford to dope as my Fizik saddle makes my boys go all numb so frying them with juice is a big no no… Hey a personal decision…. unlike some sad boys who rolled over

Hunter

It would have been nice of White to admit this in May 2010 when first accused.

I feel now Bannan should go and probably Mueller as well, both appointed him while under investigation so at the very least they lack judgement. Bannan’s first reaction when White was named as Rider 9 was particularly concerning.

Who’s next to confess? Rogers?

Biker8337

is the elephant in the room that people are talking about Team sky (their performance and links to past doping thru their current riders and staff) ?

Echidna_sg

the elephant is that the pros have all gone quiet and nobody is saying anything about the whole affair…

as for Sky, who knows – they have one guy on the team suspended/retired (Barry) and they have a number of old hands involved in the team (like almost all other teams) with somewhat shady or dubious backgrounds, including their road captain from TdF 2012… just ride to power boys, ride to power….

am I cheating by drinking beetroot juice now?

lulu

How about a ban on all blokes cycling for the next 2 years, and only allow women to race. Chicks don’t seem to have the same issue with drugs that blokes do. Lets see what that does!

UCI needs to grow come Kahunas, bugger this 2 year, 6 month or whatever ban, strip the rider of his racing license, fine him 1 years salary (that goes to anti doping education, NOT the UCI) give the team 1 strike, 3 strikes and team is out. Deprive them of their lively hood and surely the smart ones will figure it out, the rest will reap what they sow.

Kiwi

Rea;lity is, if you won a Grand Tour stage, or a classic, from 1998 through to at least 2007, you are either having a freak of a day, or you were on a needle program. How many guys need braces when in their late 20’s, unless their jaw has grown and spread their teeth apart?, how many people can recover from day after day of Grand Tour Racing in their mid thirties?, how many guys can ride away from a pro peleton in a classic, get caught, smack it again and ride away even stronger?. We all love to think of these guys as heroes, the obvious is becoming more obvious every day. When I started racing, you maybe got 8-10 guys at a club race, and 40 at the nationals, on a good day. The influence of LA and his empire, and the heroes we all watched and wanted to emulate, have given cycling at every level a massive exposure, and lifted involvement into the stratoshpere, we shouldnt forget that, through the witchhunt that is about to get under way. I can agree with cheating, and thats what it is, but their has to be some perspective on it. Without a doubt, some of the good guys were / are doing this, and there will be a few sad days yet. BTW, Im not trying to pin anyone here, and not trying to suggest any names.

Matt

I don’t care what happens with White and Orica-Greenedge; they are a professional outfit, they can do what they want as far as I’m concerned. Pro cycling is almost at a point where the average punter doesn’t take it seriously anyway. White’s position with CA however is certainly untenable and it would be a disgrace and an insult to the rest of us who follow the sport and pay the wages of the governing body if he returns to those roles he has held previously.
Yeah, he’s good bloke, yeah he made a mistake, blah blah blah,,,,this is exactly the sort of attitude that has put the sport in the mess it is in now with a public profile in the dirt and it’s reputation falling faster than Felix Baumgartner. The conditions which created the Armstrong still exist and will continue to do so as long as the traditional attitude of turning a blind eye just because “everyone does it”, continues to be the norm. The administrators, fans, media and sponsors are all culpable to a degree and with a certain team dominating racing this year like the doped up super teams of the past, it could be argued on the balance of probability, given the evidence of remote training bases, dodgy doctors and massive improvements in “numbers” of the members of this team that the US Postal philosophy is still prevalent at the highest level.
The sport is in a bad place and will need a massive overhaul if it is to win back the respect of the average sporting public who don’t generally follow cycling. I fear it can’t be done and the sacrifice of Armstrong will be in vain and the sport will continue to rot from within.

Whitey shouild quite seriously be bothered of himself. His activities by delivering 3 Lowe to Del Morel are inexcusable given what we now know and may be the purpose for a very appealing profession finishing beginning.

Deb

Have you seen the news that Peiper is leaving Garmin, destination unknown? Interesting times.

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